Wealth distribution in US is not what you think it is

The reality of how our country’s wealth is distributed may scare you. In fact, the numbers are down right frightening.

The bottom 40 percent of Americans barely have any of the country’s wealth, while the top 20 percent holds 84 percent.

A survey called “Building a Better America: One Wealth Quintile At A Time” by Harvard business professor Michael I. Norton and Duke University economist Dan Ariely, shows that Americans believe the top 20 percent earners control about 59 percent of the country’s wealth when the figure is closer to 84 percent.

The survey asked about 5000 respondents how they believed wealth was distributed in the U.S. They said that the top quintile should own 32 percent of the country’s wealth.

A video called “Wealth Inequality in America,” based on the survey, is making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, and it happens to coincide with hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller making multiple media appearances taking on some of these very topics.

Inside the world of finance Drunckenmiller, formerly the chairman and president of Duquesne Capital, is one of the brightest minds the world has to offer on economics and finance.

Recently, Drunckenmiller has taken to the media airwaves to spread a non-partisan message that suggests if our politicians don’t quickly resolve entitlement issues— Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare—future generations will have no shot at a decent life. What this video and Drunckenmiller have in common is their message that our politicians have been enacting legislation that has been fleecing the middle class and future generations for the last 40 years. If we don’t drastically change these tangents the U.S. will lose most of its world power and go the way of Greece, Spain and Italy.

The U.S. has benefited, even if by accident, from legislation that helped the middle class like the GI bill after World War II. Since the ’70s when Washington lobbyists took hold, America’s strong middle class has been reduced and reduced to virtually the numbers depicted in the “Wealth Inequality in America” video.

80/20 rule in wealth distribution in U.S.

Wealth distribution in U.S. (Source: Wealth Inequality in America)

The video illustrates how the 80/20 rules works. The rule is, in the U.S., 80 percent of the money is being made by 20 percent of the people. According to the video in 1976 the top one percent of income earners took home 9 percent of the income in the U.S. Today the top one percent take home a whopping 24 percent of all income generated.

The top 20 percent has more of the country’s wealth than nine out of 10 Americans believe the top 20 percent should have. The narrator goes on to illustrate in a graph how much more the top 20 percent has in wealth and the numbers are off the carts.

The video divides the country’s wealth into the bottom 20 percent, second 20 percent, the middle 20 percent, the fourth 20 percent and the top 20 percent.

According to the video, Americans have a skewed view on how the country’s wealth is distributed. Shockingly the video uncovers the vastly different reality of what Americans think the country’s wealth distribution is and what it actually is.

Watch “Wealth Inequality in America” and tells us what you think about these numbers.